K-Pop Big At Gold Disc Awards

Despite a territorial dispute that doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon, K-pop scored big at the annual Japan Gold Disc Awards, which are given out by the Recording Industry Association of Japan.

Granted, the awards are simply given to acts that have sold the most music in Japan. Therefore, as long as K-pop artists sell more records than any other non-Japanese Asian acts, they will be cited, but lately the Japanese media has been rather cool toward K-pop.

As expected, the Japanese girl idol collective AKB48 was named artist of the year, with the Western version of the prize going to singer Che’Nelle.

The Asian version went to Korean girl group Kara. New artist awards went to One Direction in the Western category, Korean boy band B1A4 in the Asian category and Nogizaka46 for the Japanese artist.

Album of the year awards were won by veteran J-pop group Mr. Children, Che’Nelle and Kara.

Citations are based on total sales, of both physical discs and downloads.

In addition, K-pop collective Girls’ Generation won two awards, including downloaded Asian song of the year for the Japanese version of their single “Paparazzi,” and best Asian music video for their Japan concert tour film.